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Page updated:
25 January 2000

How to introduce Teleworking (in a University context)

This FAQ has been contributed by Fraser McLeish BA MBA dipCDP (fml@gcal.ac.uk); it includes a useful checklist. The European Telework Online team has added some notes and a short commentary. Although Fraser has focused on a University environment, most of the messages here are equally relevant to all employers.

Background considerations

Understanding the potential business problems associated with a teleworking pilot scheme is essential to its success. Awareness of the teleworking advantages and disadvantages (see FAQ: What are the main Benefits of Telework?) for both employers and employees will assist in deciding how to implement teleworking within the organisation.

For teleworking to be effectively implemented at a strategic level in educational establishments, planning is the key.

Teleworking must be voluntary and no employee should be forced to participate. Evaluation of potentially successful teleworkers (see FAQ: Is there a "right" psychological profile for teleworkers?) requires full consideration as to whether their job is suitable and whether their home is conducive to teleworking (see FAQ: What are the basic requirements for teleworking at/from home?).

Implementation is a step-by-step process. A Management Action Plan is outlined below, aimed at maximising the potential benefits of telework and minimising problems and risks.

Management Action Plan

1. Set clear objectives:

• Sponsor the initiative with a budget and promote a 'champion'
• Establish why teleworking is to be introduced
• Predict what will be gained
2. Communicate with Staff:
   • State the objectives and goals
   • Obtain commitment and co-operation from the staff
   • Manage any cultural change
   • Consider further staff empowerment

3. Involve all Service Providers and their Advisers:
   • Personnel functions, including Unions and Health and Safety
   • Computer technical support
   • Internet Service Providers
   • Telecommunication services
   • Administration support
   • Facilities management
   • Risk Management (including legal, insurance, financial, environmental)

4. Establish policies to cover:
   • Equipment
   • Telecommunications
   • Security
   • Eligibility to work away from the office
   • Off-site support (including hardware, software, other facilities)
   • Health and safety issues
   • Legal issues
   • Financial issues (ie taxation)
   • Personnel issues

5. Establish procedures to cover:
   • Assessment of the individual, the task and the workplace (see FAQ: What are the basic requirements for teleworking at/from home?)
   • Feasibility study
   • Planning
   • Set-up
   • Monitoring and support
   • Termination (in what circumstances and for what reasons will telework not be continued - for an individual, a function, the organisation)

6. Teleworking research and development:
   • Monitor other people's use of flexible working
   • Run a teleworking pilot
   • Review achievement against the objectives
   • Refine the procedures and policies

Success factors

For teleworking to succeed, managerial issues need to be resolved, all service providers and their advisors should be involved, myths should be expelled and facts given.

The key to teleworking is successful selection, training and evaluation procedures. What's important is that we provide help in ways that makes it easier for people to change and develop, not in ways that seek to protect them from change. If we take a defensive, protective approach, the effect will be to hold back the innovators and those who are at the forefront of change, and on whom we rely on for our future prosperity.

As I am a firm believer in Investors in People (IIP) I also think that the University should take a leaf out of the book from many of its affiliate colleges who are already Investors in People. The IIP approach is about helping companies to realise the value of their most potent investment - their own people, by providing a benchmark against which to measure the effectiveness of an organisation. Its strengths lie in the requirement for organisations to establish clear linkages between business goals and individual and team development, and that it is a structured means of getting an efficient Human Resource Development system in place.

Involvement of people taps into a reservoir of latent talent and expertise previously unexploited. Employees often have a very realistic view of what training and development is and can see personal, team and organisational benefits. IIP helps managers to identify roles and responsibilities, making them more effective, and thus contributing to creating a learning culture more able to take advantage of business opportunities. To be successful it needs good leadership, commitment, a vision for the future of the business, staff empowerment, good communication and the development of good training practices.

With young children now owning and feeding their computerised CyberPets it is not hard to understand that a new work paradigm is going to be needed in the Universities of the 21st Century. The widespread formal introduction of teleworking in Education may be looked at as one small step towards this, and lifelong learning will become a necessity in order to keep up with the technological advancements of enabling technologies in this, the "information age".

Notes (added by European Telework Online website team)

1. "Investors in People" (IIP) mentioned by Fraser is a UK Government-backed programme that encourages employers to have coherent training and human resource development programmes as a central and integrated part of their organisation strategy.

2. An issue not addressed above, but important if telework becomes a normal practice, is when and how to amend the contract of employment. See below.

Commentary (added by European Telework Online website team)

1. How does a University differ from other organisations from a telework standpoint?

   A University is similar to a commercial enterprise in that it has employees, premises etc, but there are some interesting differences, which may affect the way telework is supported. In particular, a University has four sets of people with somewhat different roles and different relationships with the organisation:

   • management, administrative and technical support staff
   • teaching staff
   • researchers (overlapping in some cases with researchers)
   • students
   Any or all of these may well work "off site" on a teleworking basis, but the differences in relationships needs to be considered when evaluating, planning and implementing telework. In some cases (for example the UK's Open University and an increasing proportion of MBA courses) students may participate on an almost 100% telework basis, in which case why not the remainder of the people? In other cases, students may be required to be "in residence", when it may also be appropriate for some of the staff responsible for their direction, education and welfare to also be required to be in residence or closely available. Some researchers, like students, may have a time-limited relationship with the University. The management considerations regarding telework need to reflect such characteristics.

2. Should telework be "voluntary"?
   (See also FAQs: Is there a "right" psychological profile for teleworkers?)

   Fraser suggests that

   "Teleworking must be voluntary and no employee should be forced to participate."

   This view is commonly expressed by telework advocates and consultants and is sometimes enshrined in employment contracts that are revised to encompass teleworking. It is certainly valid in a telework pilot scheme or feasibility study, but there may well be circumstances in which this is inappropriate. For example:

   • The employee is "field based" from the outset and the existing custom is for field based personnel to operate from home rather than from company premises. Examples include sales people and customer service staff whose main work occurs on the road or at customer premises. In a University with widely dispersed facilities it might be equally appropriate for some services personnel to go from home to whatever site they are supporting on a particular day and not to have permanent desk space or other facilities at a particular site.

   • Working entirely or mainly at home is or becomes intrinsic to a particular role and people are recruited on this basis. For example, a company might advertise for people to work on "a teleworking at home" basis for particular job requirements. Unless otherwise agreed in the contract of employment, the company then has no right to require the employee to commute to a company site to do the same work, but nor has the employee any right to require the company to provide premises and on-site facilities.

   In the case of a workforce that was recruited on the basis of travelling to a company site, logic suggests that both company and employees should "try out" a teleworking at home approach to find out whether it works and in what cicumstance and for what purposes it works. The existing contract of employment will probably have at least an implied assumption that the company will provide premises and facilities and that the employee is required to work on company premises. In this case there should be no question of "enforced" teleworking, and it should be clear that any teleworking is on a basis of mutual agreement and may be terminated by either the company or the employee, subject to any temporary rules agreed between them.

   If and when telework looks set to become a normal activity for the organisation, contracts of employment will usually need to be reworded, at which stage considerable thought and care is needed to make sure the contract (for existing and future employees) properly reflects:

   1. the employer's intentions and new policy

      and

   2. the rights and obligations of the employer and the employee, particulary as regards: the circumstances in which employees may or may not telework; what facilities will be provided by employer and employee; arrangements for varying the extent of teleworking and/or on site working.

   In some situations it will be fair and reasonable for the employer to require some employees to work on site while others are permitted to telework. In some situations it may be fair and reasonable for the contract to stipulate that the primary workplace is the employee's home or some other location arranged by the employee not by the employer.

   It doesn't seem realistic to assume that in all situations telework can be a purely voluntary arrangement.